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3/03/2014

Writing Moods and a Weekly Update

I’ve been more aware of my moods lately than usual. Maybe it’s
because winter is dragging on. It’s nice that writing takes my mind off the snow,
grayness and fog, but the moods still manage to attach themselves to the writing.

Unless the moods have nothing to do with the weather, and
everything to do with writing. Might that be?

Here’s a typical
range of moods:

When it’s time to
start writing in the morning: I read at the day’s planned revising/editing
and feel at sea (i.e. sick) about how rough the draft is, and how many hours it will take
today to sculpt the scenes into something better.

Then as I’m in the
flow, being the characters, I want to cry for my heroine. I’m just past the
halfway mark, approaching the black moment where all will appear lost for
her. It’s a rough patch for her and for me to
get through, and it will get worse before it gets better. It will probably
be another two weeks before I can give her a happy ending. And before my own sadness
for her ends, darn.

Later in the
afternoon, as my brain tires, my mood takes another dip. At 2:00 pm, I look
at the clock and wonder how many more hours it will be before I’ve completed
the day’s scenes to my satisfaction. If I’m not done by 4:00 pm, I throw in the
towel, regardless. Writing is supposed to bring us joy, right? We shouldn’t
work until we are abusing ourselves instead. I understand it when people say they don't like to write, but they like having written.

Fortunately, whether
I declare I’m finished at 4:00 pm, or whether I finish before that—like today,
when I finished at 1:30 pm—the forces tamping down on my mood lift immediately.
My brain is tired, but I reward myself with of a cup of tea and a snack. And
then I to go to my scrapbooking room for some further mood lifting. The moment I walk into the room, I feel a tangible lift, thank goodness.

So that’s my writing day via moods. Does writing make you
moody? What do your moods look like?

Updates:

Scrapbooking:
Only three more double-page layouts, and I am done with all four scrapbooks for
2013. Woohoo! If I can keep up with 2014
as it happens, I should be able to do at least one other year of the many,
many years left to scrapbook.

Social:

On Friday, with me desperately needing to get out of the
house, hubby and I went to a home and garden show in Spokane with some friends and then
ate dinner at a wonderful German restaurant. My chicken cordon bleu was tender
and delicious. Hubby’s black forest cake, of which I stole three bites, was out
of this world. Even the decaf coffee was wonderful, imagine that.

On Saturday, my daughter brought her
kids over for dinner and a movie while her hubby was busy being an exhibitor at the
home show.

On Sunday, hubby and I enjoyed our tradition of watching the Academy Awards . We watched them together for the first time the year our oldest daughter was born. That was in 1975, and we watched it while sitting together on my hospital bed, after having given birth to her. That’s how long this tradition’s been going on! Really enjoyed how funny Ellen DeGeneres is.

WRITING: I entered ACFW’s Genesis contest this
morning. As each contest asks for different things, the notable differences about this one was in asking for a media contact as well as a
high-resolution picture of me. I had hoped a selfie I took a few weeks ago
would work, but no.

So I had hubby take
another one, and here is the goofy farmer’s wife (er, writer) at the
required 300 ppi resolution. I was rather frustrated about having to have my picture taken, but hubby's usually able to lift my mood. At least a little. For a while. Too bad I chopped off my bangs a couple of days ago.

After spending all morning preparing my submission and
getting my picture taken (well, that part took only a click of a camera),
part of me is saying that I should clean my messy office.

Another part of me is saying, “Pfft. You deserve a reward. For goodness sake, take one.”

4 comments:

Sounds like you're keeping busy! I'm super jealous of your scrapbooking capabilities. I can't even manage to keep the photo albums updated (it's these darn digital photos--they make it possible to take a million pictures, so it takes forever to sift through them...). I watched the Academy Awards also~ I agree that Ellen is just so funny and likeable :)

In terms of writing moods, my best stuff comes in the wee hours if I can find the time without waking up the little ones. Much like you, my creative energy is sapped by early afternoon.